Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos

If you have a child that is involved in sports you know what I’m talking about. A lot of our water polo games this season have been right at the dinner hour. That is why this is the time of year I pull out the slow cooker the most. When you are walking in your door at 6:30 or 7:00 at night, you need a plan. I try to include at least one slow cooker meal per week through the season.

He is Boy #4 to us but on the team he is known as #11. Here he is rising out of the water like the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch. I apologize. I still have Halloween on the brain.

The team has gone undefeated this season and later today we’ll be at the pool watching the boys play in the championship game at our league tournament. We’ve been water polo parents since Boy #1 entered high school but that will end at the conclusion of this season. We could not have asked for more. Ending the season in the top position is an excellent way finish out our 10 years of being involved in high school water polo. Way to go boys!

This recipe is an excellent choice for game day or any crazy, busy day. It was on our menu recently and it’s always a winner.

About 6 to 8 hours before you want to serve dinner, place 5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in your slow cooker.

Sprinkle 3 heaping tablespoons of the taco seasoning of your choice over the the chicken.

I always have a small jar of my Homemade Taco Seasoning in my pantry. I like to mix it up myself to control the amount of salt and tweak it just how I like it. You can substitute with prepared taco seasoning and the result will still be wonderful.

The onions and tomatoes go in next. I used Diced Fire Roasted Garlic Tomatoes but you can grab any variety that looks good to you at the store.

Scatter a can of undrained, diced green chiles over the top. Place the lid on the slow cooker, set it to low, and walk away. It’s that easy!

When you come back 6 to 8 hours later, it should be fork tender and shred easily.

Shred away.

Add in a little chopped cilantro to brighten things up.

Cilantro is pretty…and yummy.

Mix it together and it is ready to serve.

This chicken is very versatile. You can serve it on corn or flour tortillas, use it as a base for chicken enchiladas, soups, chilis, and more.

Every now and then, or maybe constantly, I crave fried corn tortillas so that’s what were doing this time. You can opt to warm either corn or flour tortillas in the microwave to save some fat and calories but I’m going for it!

Pour a generous amount of vegetable oil in the bottom of a small frying pan. Place it over medium high heat and when the oil is nice and hot, add a tortilla. Only allow it to cook for about 1 minute per side. It needs to be pliable and if you let it go too long, you’ll have tostadas for dinner instead.

Place the cooked tortilla between sheets of paper towels to absorb the excess oil and repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Load them up with all the usual taco goodness. Cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, and anything and everything else.

Place chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker. Sprinkle taco seasoning evenly over the chicken. Top with diced onion and then pour tomatoes over the top. Top with the undrained green chiles. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Remove lid from slow cooker and shred the chicken with two forks. Add cilantro and mix to combine. Serve.

To Prepare the Tortillas:

Fry method - Heat a generous amount of vegetable oil in a small frying pan over medium high heat. When the oil is good and hot (but not smoking) carefully add a tortilla. Only allow to cook about 1 minute per side then remove to paper towels to drain. Blot top of tortilla with paper towel to remove excess oil. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

Comments

I have been loving my crockpot this year. I have been making pulled pork from Everyday Paleo-it is very yummy. Thanks for this wonderful idea-I will be making it soon. I love corn tortillas and have never tried cooking them up like that—–mwahaha—I like it!

Your boys are so lucky to have a mom who cooks amazing food everyday, even on busy days!!! I don’t own a slow cooker (yet!), but this does sounds so easy and delicious. I’ll try this with my cast iron and will cook long time over the stove. My kids started to eat more, and I just cannot imagine how you fed 4 boys when they were all in the house! You got a great chef training done at home!

Was searching for a recipe for crock-pot chicken tacos, and stumbled across your website. What luck! So many recipes I want to try. Made this one today, and it was delicious (and amazingly easy). Both hubby and son approved, so it’s going in the keeper file. Thanks.

Looks delicious and I am looking forward to trying it! Just wondering about how many pounds of chicken you generally use. The chicken breasts I bought are really big and I want to have the right ratio of ingredients.

Hi Nan I would guess that 5 pieces would be about 3 pounds but it does make quite a bit. If your pieces are large, you can definitely just use 3 or 4 and keep all the other amounts as written. It’s a pretty forgiving recipe so it should be just fine.

I just finished making this. Excellent and easy recipe for busy and hungry people! If you are gluten free, make sure that the taco seasoning doesn’t have WHEAT FLOUR in it. I had to search for a while, but then found the Ortega Brand, which has CORN FLOUR in it. Again, great and tasty recipe. All I added was some salt and Goya Adobo Seasoning.

i have been using this recipe for a while now except i drain the chili’s an the tomatoes and pour everything into the slow cooker all at once and cook on low 5-6 hours , then just shred the chicken with a fork right in the cooker , i don’t have time for the prep and quite honestly it really isn’t necessary…..also i just pop the tortillas in foil n into the oven on 300 for a few min. n your ready to go ! the finished product is exactly the same and is just as delicious !

Hi Ashley! I used thawed chicken here but have heard that it does work well with frozen. Just plan to increase the time at least a couple of hours or you could start the slow cooker on high to speed up the cooking process a bit. Let me know how they work out for you

I love shredded beef tacos cooked in the crock pot as well.I use a rump roast, one pack of instant onion soup mix and 1- 1 1/2 cups of water. After shredding if the meat is too wet I just take the lid off the crock pot and set to high while preparing the tortillas, grating the cheese, etc. So delicious. Will have to try the shredded chicken ones now!!

Made this tonight. It was good, but I wanted to point out to anyone that uses a store-bought taco seasoning mix (I get mine at costco), the 3 heaping Tbls made this almost inedibly salty. And I’m a salt lover, so I would start low, and taste it after the chicken cooks to see if you want more. I also used a jar of my own canned tomatoes and that was really good. Because it’s so salty I’ll turn it into a tortilla soup tomorrow to water it down. I would make this again, and it’s a family pleaser (my boys are 5, 3, and 20mo and they all liked it). Needed some good mexican rice to go on the side. Thanks!

This is good to know, Rosie. I’ve never tried it with the packaged variety of taco seasoning mix but I do know the stuff you buy at the store contains a good amount of salt so definitely adjust to your liking. I’m glad you enjoyed it otherwise and thanks for the feedback

Hey Rosie. I was worried about that same thing happening when I made it, I only had two chicken breasts to work with so I was sceptical about using the 3 tbs. I used nearly half a packet of Taco Bell seasoning and I tell ya, it was amazing. Im not sure how much seasoning I actually used or if the Taco Bell one is less salty, but it worked a treat. Maybe give it another go with a different brand of seasoning… or make your own =)

I’m glad it worked out for you, Dana. I agree that making your own seasoning mix is the way to go. It’s so great to have on hand and you can totally control the amount of salt (link to my recipe for Taco Seasoning Mix is in the post). Absolutely reduce the amount of seasoning if you are using less chicken than called for here. Thanks for the good info!

OMG…I stumbled upon this recipe on Pinterest and I absolutely LOVE your site. Thanks so much for sharing all your recipes. I will be trying this recipe this week and sharing with my daugher and know I’ll love it. You’re a blessing…thank you 😉

Hi! This sounds so yummy! Curious though if you had a suggestion of an alternative to the canned tomato? My husband is highly allergic to tomatoes (sad I know!) so thats a no go but I’d love to be able to crock pot chicken tacos!

Hi Valerie!
First time to your page recently via “A Thoughtful Place” (May 22) who linked to a post from “Designer Bags and Dirty Diapers” who brought me here! This recipe looked so good and so easy, I couldn’t resist. It was even better than anticipated! Thank you for sharing.
I look forward to exploring your site for other tempting options.
All the best,
Kristin

I have a feeling it would need at least 4 hours (or longer) on HIGH to cook it to the point where the chicken is easy to shred. I typically get this going early in the day and have never tried the faster cooking method. Let me know how it works out for you.

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